Does anyone sell colored engine covers or battery covers?? I think it would be cool to switch the black out for a different color.

not that I've seen
but you could DIY

I'm still thinking of painting the covers to red this summer

i thought about taking off the strut bar accross the motor and doing that in red, but i dont know what kinda paint to use? it would have to be very ery strong like heat resistant paint


andrew

I took mine and modified it with Carbon Fiber Vinyl paper, at first I thought it would get all mess up with the heat, but is holding up pretty good. Plus the carbon fiber paper makes it look really good and not ricey. It actually looks like is made up of carbon fiber.

RX8Power

got any pics

I'm will take some and post them asap. It actually looks very good.


RX8Power

i'm having my strut bar powder coated by a local shop...will post pics when complete....

Picture is not great, but you can have an Idea.

RX8Power

another one

looks pretty nice

will it melt?

no, it will not melt, the paper will actually hold pretty good because is not to close to the engine. I have some in my 93 talon tsi awd and it's been there for close to 3 years with no problems.


RX8Power

where do u get that carbon fibre paper?

Originally posted by flyboyindy
where do u get that carbon fibre paper?

I'm interested.... cover looks pretty cool...not overly "ricey"..

Originally posted by flyboyindy
where do u get that carbon fibre paper?

its easy to get in cali because rice is popular and their is many shops that do vinyl or sticker decals that sell it

im not totally convinced..can you take a better picture of it pleez...

yeah looks decent but those pics suck! get a better camera pleez

paper? not for me. good look though

I spent some time painting my fuse box cover under the hood this past weekend. Not exactly an awsome paint job on my part, but the pic does a decent job of hiding the imperfections. My thought it to do this to all the black cover under the hood. Opinions?

Mock up in photoshop ...

I think it would look really good if you can get the color to match good. Also leave the chrome and writing on there. (Now to find a red that matches is gonna be hard)

Yea ... the shades are a little off. Not as noticible in the pic. I guess I could just have them painted. I als did this one. Obviously, I don't have to match the red shade.

I think that it looks good but how careful will you need to be when cleaning it to keep it from scratching? I do think that it adds character and individuality to your car.

Since paint's not especially well-known for adhering to plastic, I'm wondering how long the "engine-cover" would hold onto the paint before it begins to peel. The combination of a poor substrate and heat might lend itself to blistering or peeling fairly quickly. Maybe you could paint a small swatch on the underside of the engine cover and see how it holds up before diving in and painting the 'outside'. Just a thought.

Man, good thing I have a black car.

Thanks to Whealy. For posting the picture.

I took it and photochoped all the colors.

R E D

Titanium

Green

Yellow

Blue

Silver

It was originally my idea, a local paint shop gave me a quote of 120 for all the covers. That's with some pretty high temp resistant paint. I got tit gray but will prob go with a red engine, that blue looks awesome though.

Good work Mike,

although you murdered the green color man....

it has to be much, much darker.

pretty good on the others though.

-JiM

why not yank the strut bar while your at it and paint it.

i'm actually having that done next week by a local powder coat shop...in blue...i'd rather it be anodized but can't find a local shop that can do that...

looks good
I would do everything but the engine cover
leave that alone IMO

what are you paying xero?

Krylon, the same folks who make Duplicolor auto paints, make a new spray paint for plastic. No priming and adheres just fine. I don't know if the color palette is right for some of the RX-8 shades but for those daring enough to color key under the hood it should work just fine.

It's called Fusion and can be found at Walmart, Ace, Sherwin Williams stores and a few others.

Oldguy

I'm definitely going to paint my engine covers and strut this summer after seeing those pictures.

Never had thought yet....Tit. looks good...

IMO it works with the Red, Blue and Silver cars.

think it would look stupid if i got the red done on my blue eight? but with matching calipers?

Originally posted by Intrigue 8
think it would look stupid if i got the red done on my blue eight? but with matching calipers?

Intrigue 8,

That's what I was thinking as far as these covers were concerned. The winning blue pic is actual "8" color with a painted fues box color and the rest photoshopped. I also later did my battery cove in red. The sun hasn't been out to take a pic. However, the red paint came out much darker than we have pictured here. And most that I have show the photochop picture too, (see it here (http://www.rx8club.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=194631) ) just didn't like it. So I'm sticking with the blue. I also did my calipers blue too, but I'm sure red would look great regardless of "8" color.

JMO

thanx for the pic. i just might go with it but probley with a darker red hough. ill keep u posted

Originally posted by Intrigue 8
thanx for the pic. i just might go with it but probley with a darker red hough. ill keep u posted


Intrigue 8,

Here's a pic of my red battery cover outside in the "sun".

... and here's an indoor shot. Just can't quit capture the true color.

Good info Oldguy... I might just have to try this.

And WHealy, I think the coloring looks great. I personally might be inclined to make thing more than one color though.

Originally posted by Omicron
Good info Oldguy... I might just have to try this.

And WHealy, I think the coloring looks great. I personally might be inclined to make thing more than one color though.

Omicron,

Thanks for the opinion. I have some pics of a red battery cover as well. I guess I should put them here too.

Outdoors in the "sun"

... and indoor under the lights.

i like

How much is a spare engine cover,,,, how hard it is to spray paint it yourself... I would think it is about the same difficulty as making a RX-8 model right?

You forgot to do black...

I got the FUSION krylon paint in red and will be playing with it this weekend

That looks pretty durn good. Now all you need is some white, and we'll call you patriotic! :D Seriously, did you actually paint your battery cover, or just photoshop it?

Originally posted by Omicron
That looks pretty durn good. Now all you need is some white, and we'll call you patriotic! :D Seriously, did you actually paint your battery cover, or just photoshop it?

Omicron,

I've already done the patriotic thing ...

http://www.prowleronline.com/scrapbook/00001355/ss-topen-frontside.jpg


But seriously... The two pictured here are actually painted. I couldn't decide which color to go with so I painted one cover of each. I think the red is just too dark. The paint is an engine paint that has an annodized effect in it. I think that's making the red darker and that's the only red that's available. So I'm doing blue all around. Except the air box. That should be chrome polished aluminum in a few days! ;)

Enjoy! intake cover not painted bec. i will be getting either the RE or K&N intake.

.

..

...

Here is a close up of my oil cap.... Pictures of Rotary Extreme's body kit is soon to come!

middle cover to the PS2..

close up

Looks great KC. I like the rear cover as well. At first I thought the color was way off. But then I realized i was comparing to the child seat. Looks good.

Originally posted by WHealy
Looks great KC. I like the rear cover as well. At first I thought the color was way off. But then I realized i was comparing to the child seat. Looks good.

Yea, the car seat is as close as i can get to the 8's interior.

Originally posted by KC_RX-8
Yea, the car seat is as close as i can get to the 8's interior.

No, no, no. Not complaining. Just through me off at first. I like the fact that it matches as well!

Very Nice KC......... I love the two-tone engine cover! But I think the black needs to be painted, like the color of your car! I think that would so nice....just a thought!

very nice
like the back seat piece

what kind of paint did you use

Nice job.

Originally posted by mikeb
what kind of paint did you use

The same person who is painting my body kit, painted the pieces. He charged me $50 bucks! If any of you are in the area, let me know and i'll get you hooked up! :D

KC_RX-8,

What you doing with the air box?

Originally posted by WHealy
KC_RX-8,

What you doing with the air box?

installing either a RE or K&N intake

Here I wanted something with not as much color under the hood. I used Dupli-colors Metalcast. Its a 2 part anodized system. High heat, high gloss and very durable. It uses a silver base coat and a color topcoat. The most time consuming part was the masking. I wanted the vents to stay black to tie in to the vents on the side of the car. I also wanted to just do the v shape to stand out and blend more with the looks of the car. Later I will do the strut bar to blend in. Still not to much color under the hood.

The process was simple, just spray light coats. The red top coat took 4 coats to look red and not a orange tint. Take the piece outside in the sun to see the auctual color. It appears different under house lights.

They have it in blue, red, and another color just don't remember. Oh the paints are metalic.

Hope you guys and gals like.:D

Sorry I don't have a better camera. The spots are dust on film not on the engine cover.

Very nice. Way to go!

I heart it!!

That looks very cool. Good job. How did you put in those vents?

oops, nevermind. I didn't know they were always there :p

Beautiful. Looks exactly like what I plan on doing, excepting the color. Nice work!

very nice
great job

Looks good. Almost has that "factory" look. CJ

Looks great. I am planning on using that same paint on my plastic covers, although I might just leave the silver primer layer instead of coloring them. Not sure yet.

looks awesome, good work

i love it...very nice....

Definitely better than doing the whole thing. Nice work! I hope it holds up well!

That is the most tasteful engine cover paint job I've seen. Not like others that seem to just paint everything in sight under the hood. haha

looks like a million bucks!!!!! what did you use to mask it off while the painting was being carried out>??????????

Nice Job!

Very tastefully done.

i agree, the best engine color mod i've seen.

awesome when can you come do mine?

what do I do man! I have a black one! Paint it black?!

Hot pink. :D

Thats sweet! simple but elegant

To CARDINAL35 I used automotive blue masking tape to get the curves right and to get a good bond to the plastic. For the vents i used a clear package tape over the vent so i could see the proper line and used an axacto blade to trim. Around the lettering i used 1/8 inch masking tape and placed it against the edge of the lettering to get a good striaght line.
The big thing is don't rush and take your time. And use paper to mask the sides and the back of the cover for overspray.

Hope this helps.

Thanks guys and gals it means alot.

The paint will hold up very well. I have waxed it already 2 times.
Shines as well as rest of the car.

To TAKAHASHI,

They have it in black also. The gloss finish in the black would look great against the flat black of the plastic. It would look like two pieces put together.

Originally posted by mmmdowning
To TAKAHASHI,

They have it in black also. The gloss finish in the black would look great against the flat black of the plastic. It would look like two pieces put together.
That's what I was thinking. A shiny black rotor symbol on the hood and under the hood;)

Sweet mod!

Well, I took the plunge today and painted my engine, ECU, and fuse box cover today. I used a metalflake black for the ECU and fuse box covers and part of the engine cover, and a georgeous metalflake dark blue on the central part of the engine cover. Paint is Rustoleum "Metallic," available at Home Depot.

In the picture, the blue looks lighter/brighter than it actually is... sorry, lighting was bad when I took the pic. Also note that the ECU and fuse box covers look the same as the outer part of the engine cover in good light - they didn't reflect well in the poor light.

Masking the engine cover was the hardest part, especially since I decided to do my own twist on what's been done before, and paint the engine cover in 2 stages: outer part and inner part. On the inner, I just had to get all anal retentive and after masking off the lettering and Mazda "flying M" logo, I carefully cut the mask around each and every letter. Came out great IMHO, but taking the tape off the letters was as big a pain as putting it on!

Anyway, I also painted the battery cover silver, to match my Rotary Extreme intake after it goes back on my car (I have it out now as my car's going in for service on Monday to get an oil cooler hose replaced, see this thread (http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16968) for more info). I also think I am going to redo my ECU and fuse box covers in the blue, as it looks SO nice in person.

Nice mod, and I appreciate all who have contributed to this idea. mmmdowning and WHealy especially come to mind.

BTW, that's dog fuzz in the pic below on the left side of the blue part, not a scratch.

ECU and battery cover...

And finally, fuse box cover.

Paul (Omicron),

Looks good man. I gotta know. What did you use to mask the letters? I finally just gave up as every type of tape I tried on them mearly slipped off. And by the way, the emblem comes off and retails for $20. Not that you need it, but I did! :)

that is awesome. best one i've seen so far. very nice job. :)

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.

WHealy (Bill?) I used plain ol' masking tape and newspaper for the bulk of it, and clear packing tape to "mask" off the letters, "Flying M," and the vent on the engine cover. However, I first cleaned everything off with a multipurpose cleaner called Simple Orange. Great stuff. Had no problems with any of the tape sticking after cleaning.

its lookin good

Nice

Originally posted by takahashi
what do I do man! I have a black one! Paint it black?!

silver would look good

I like it it looks nice. Only suggestion I would make, since you took so much time w/the detail of it (which looks good,) I would have exacto'd the lettering as well.

Good Work!

very creative guys!!!...i like....

Omi....in your second pic it looks almost like your car is painted the LeMans Sunset of the 350Z...tripped me out....

Originally posted by XeRo
very creative guys!!!...i like....

Omi....in your second pic it looks almost like your car is painted the LeMans Sunset of the 350Z...tripped me out.... LOL, I never noticed that until you pointed it out. That's my garage light reflecting in the paint... does turn it kind of a strange color... LOL.

Originally posted by MyRxBad
I like it it looks nice. Only suggestion I would make, since you took so much time w/the detail of it (which looks good,) I would have exacto'd the lettering as well. Good Work! Well thanks, but if you're referring to mine, I did "exacto" the lettering. :)

.

Hey, took me a bout a week, some freezing cold temperatures and flying newspapers landing on drying paint but I finally got my engine cover looking the way I wanted to.

The center tri-oval is about 20 coats (newspapers fault) of a dark grey metallic.

The vents and tri-oval partition are candy apply red.

The rest is metallic black and clear coated.

The Mazda Emblem will look better if you just take some acetone to it the black paint will come off, mine is painted aluminum.

Would work really well with the people with 2 tone red/black interiors

http://home.comcast.net/~mark87g/Engine_Cover_2.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~mark87g/Engine_Cover_1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~mark87g/Engine_Cover_4.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~mark87g/Mazda_Logo.jpg

Looks good!

Ya nice job....are you going to tackle the battery, ECU, fuse and airbox covers?

Tremendous.

Originally posted by Gyro
Ya nice job....are you going to tackle the battery, ECU, fuse and airbox covers?

Yup Soon as it warms up.

Very nice. Just a little goes a long way.

looks ok..just don't get to carried away with your engine bay painting...if too much is done it just ends up looking real cheap..

Excellent! :) And with a black or red car, just perfect, not to much color, but what is there looks real fine! A great fun mod.

2 thumbs UP!

WHOA!...that is really cool...got some cool creativity going on in that brain of yours...

Great job, keep it up!

It looks awesome. Great Job!!

Beautiful job PoLak. You do nice work. :D

LIKE WHOA!! I'd pay you to do mine! (Seriously i would, just let me know price :) )

email/pm

monte@surreal-media.com
aim: unomonte

That is so Bad Ass! It looks almost evil... Bet the Mazda mechanics freak when they open your hood. wow

Awesome work!
You're a genius man, I'll bet some people would buy that if you started selling.

Painted under the hood last weekend.

I have a red earth grounding kit coming. It should add just enough red to set it off nicely.

I used the same hi-temp paint as for the calipers, but I'm planning on clearcoating it under the hood.

Do you remove the strut bar to paint it or just mask the hell out of everything?

I removed it. There is only two 10mm nuts on each side holding it down. Just make sure you sand it good. I had to sand it twice, because the primer didn't want to stick.

Very nice, XcelR8. :D Be sure to post up pics when you do your clear coating...

Originally posted by XcelR8
I removed it. There is only two 10mm nuts on each side holding it down. Just make sure you sand it good. I had to sand it twice, because the primer didn't want to stick.

What did you use to sand? Just a high grit paper or something else?

I've never painted parts before, but I want to do the strut bar, engine cover, and if I get up enough nerve the calipers.

Yes, just us a high grit sand paper to allow the paint to stick. You don't need to sand it to bare metal. When you are done sanding it wipe if with a clean cloth. Hang it from one of the holes so you can walk around the whole part. After it is hangin wipe off were you touched it. The oils in your hands can cause the paint to not stick. Then prime and paint it in light even coats.

As far as the engine cover....don't sand it. You will only mess up the textured finish. Wipe off the area you are going paint with thinner. This will allow the paint to stick to the plastic. Especially if you cleaned it or used any conditioner on it such as "Back to Black". Just make sure to don't get any paint thinner on areas you are not going to paint. It may discolor it. I would suggest wiping the areas off after you mask them. Then just paint the area the color of your choice.

It is not real difficult, but if you are not comfortable. Paint a scrap piece of metal or wood first until you get the hang of it. Paint is cheap...replacing the parts on your car is not.

Originally posted by KC_RX-8
middle cover to the PS2..



What car seat do you have strapped in there? I'm looking for one similar, as well as a "booster" (bottom only).

AT

Originally posted by Atacdad
What car seat do you have strapped in there? I'm looking for one similar, as well as a "booster" (bottom only).

AT

It is the Graco Turbo booster (http://www.gracobaby.com/catalog/product.aspx?modelNumber=8493RSW)

Graco has just boosters too. Babies R Us has both of them.

Enjoy!

Here's mine...

oops...how bout now...

one more of the engine bay...

and my calipers just for fun...

Scudrunner....I was thinking about doing the samething with the groves on the battery cover and air box cover. I like the look of the engine cover, too. Good job.

I can't take all the credit. After doing the air box myself, I got a little scared of tackling the engine cover. So, I had it done for me, and the guy said he'd do the battery cover for no extra cost, since what he was really charging me for was the amount of paint he'd have to mix, which would be enough to do both.

Has anyone besides me thought about air brushing some flames on all the covers? I mean one large design that would cover them all.

"Has anyone besides me thought about air brushing some flames on all the covers? I mean one large design that would cover them all.
"

now THAT is badass- if it was pulled off right- it might be tricky laying them all out evenly as they would be spaced in the car for the actual painting?? I don'y know though- I am not an airbrush artist

Just wanted to show off my first real home brew mod. (i.e. not buying a part and installing it)
**not that there is anything wrong with that**
But I took the idea from Blue Grim and a several others on the MessageBoards. Blue Grim's is the one I've seen in person.

Anyway what do you think?

http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/CoverEngine.JPG

more pics...but looks clean anyway

looks nice ::thumbs up:: very clean and not tacky at all... one of those small but very noticeable things

Thanks for the opinions. I plan on doing the rest of the covers in the near future, including the strut bar.
As soon as I finish those I'll post more pictures.
The grey/silver seemed to blend well with the other engine components, once I finsih the rest it should look really nice.

Thanks again,
Gary

haha i went ahead and tried this a few weeks back...and messsssseddddd up.... id rather not get into though. quite embarrassing. im still figuring out how im gonna fix it... acetone tried, would take weeks of scrubbing... anyways YOU did a really good job. looks really clean

What I would like to know is what did you use to mask off the area you dodn't want paint on. I have tried every tape that I have (high quality auto masking tape, paint masking tape, packing tape, scotch tape and gaffers tape) and nothing sticks to the engine covers. I finally used a liquid masking and that stuff is going to take forever to get scraped off. But, I am making progress with it, slow but sure. My thumb nails are killing me!

The Mazda sign will not hold paint in the black area. It wrinkled up and I scraped it off with ease. What the hell did they make this stuff out of?

I used blue masking tape. Prior to the tape, I cleaned the cover real good with 409 and let it dry about an hour or more.
I used short peices of tape and place them tangent to the inside edge of that center parabola., and kept doing that all around that outer edge until I felt the curve was good enough.
The inside edge, I did the same thing but placed the small strips of tape vertically into the groove and presssed against in inside wall of the parabola.
I also did the vertical tape around the edge of the center mazda logo, then flattened the tape down onto the logo, until it was all covered.
For the Renisis lettering I put a solid strip of tape over it and used an exacto knife to cut arround the letters. The hard part of this is to peel the tape off after the paint dries. Again the exacto knife came in handy for that while being carefuly not to scratch the letters.
Granted doing this took a lot of time and patience., but it works out for the best in the end.
Unfortunatly it's rainging this weekend, so I can finish the touch ups and the other covers that I had intended.

Nice job Gary, looks EXcellent! How about a couple more pics, from different angles?

Originally posted by Agent of Chaos
I used blue masking tape. Prior to the tape, I cleaned the cover real good with 409 and let it dry about an hour or more.
I used short peices of tape and place them tangent to the inside edge of that center parabola., and kept doing that all around that outer edge until I felt the curve was good enough.
The inside edge, I did the same thing but placed the small strips of tape vertically into the groove and presssed against in inside wall of the parabola.
I also did the vertical tape around the edge of the center mazda logo, then flattened the tape down onto the logo, until it was all covered.
For the Renisis lettering I put a solid strip of tape over it and used an exacto knife to cut arround the letters. The hard part of this is to peel the tape off after the paint dries. Again the exacto knife came in handy for that while being carefuly not to scratch the letters.
Granted doing this took a lot of time and patience., but it works out for the best in the end.
Unfortunatly it's rainging this weekend, so I can finish the touch ups and the other covers that I had intended.

Thanks, I found this out. I didn't do the one thing that I should have remembered, clean it before doing anything to it. Afterwards, I cleaned it with a pressure hose and the tape stuck like a charm. The middle black part of the mazda flying M logo came off with a spot sanding pen made by pme pf te major paint manufacturers. I need to go to step two for the second paint color tomorrow as this first color has dried. I also did the strut bar today, too.

I liked your engine cover and it's color scheme very well and would also like to see a few more pics from different angles. :D

Well seeing as how the rain yesterday left us with extremly high humidity, I won't be able to paint at all this weekend. So I'll go ahead and post some other pictures that were requested.
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover1.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover2.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover3.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover4.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover5.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover6.JPG

Thanks for all the feedback:)

You can see around the vents I have touch up to do and also around the groove between the inside and middle. I may tape of the parabola from the outside (easier to make tangents) and then paint that center parabola a piano black like the inside on the Mazda Symbol.

That's veeeeeery nice! What type of paint did you use?

I went with a three layers...
Layer 1 - DupliColor Metalicast Ground Coat
Layer 2 - Duplicolor Auto Spray - Med. Charcoal
Layer 3 - Duplicolor Engin Enamel
I went with layers 1 and 3 becuase the middle layer was not high temp paint. So I fugured a layer below and above would help with heat protection.
Duplicolor makes a Metalicast in various colors..so if you can find the right color in this you can probably skip the base coat. ..but that would be your choice.
Things cleared up and humidity leveled off...so I decided to go ahead and paint the rest of the covers. I'll post pics when I finish and then more when I get it all back on the car.

It actually cleared up anough today for me to paint the other covers under the hood of my Titan. What do you thing?

http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover11.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover12.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover14.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/RX8Cover20.JPG

Gary J

Looks awesome, Gary! Nice job! :D

Awesome... what do you think of a prospect for the black cars....

Worth doing to the black one???

looks sharp

ever since I got My K&N intake I tossed the cover

I'm not too sure what color for a black car. It would be more of a personal preference as to what color to offset the black with. There wouldn't be too much benifit in going with black paint, unless you went with a high glass enamal black. If I wanted to accent it somehow, I would go with red on the covers and other various red accents in the engine bay. Such as the strut bar and some of the various caps. But most likely with a black eight I would leave them unpainted, unless I went with a gloss black.

I finally got around to painting the black sections with a glossy black. The glossy black makes a world of differences compared to the flat black of the bare plastic. Below are a few shot...

http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/Cover31.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/Cover34.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/Cover35.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~g.jaworski/RX8/Cover37.JPG

looks good, i like the flat black better though

looks very nice agent

Originally posted by mikeb
looks sharp

ever since I got My K&N intake I tossed the cover I left my engind cover on since putting my K&N intake on but put it under glass, so to say. :D I still gotta do the DIY on that. Been too busy lately.

still, looks really nice agent, nice combo colors for your colr 8. :D

That's looks awesome. Great attention to detail. Lots of colors could be best for accenting on diferent cars but yours seems the perfect match. Thanks for all the pics and ideas. Jeff B.

All I can say is WOW! :D

All I can say is WOW! :D

I'm wanting to do this, but I can't see any of the pics. Can someone help me out?

Sorry, I recently moved and have swich internet providers. I'll try to re-post the pictures on another webserver soon.

I just painted the fuse box and engine cover. How do you take off the battery cover and the thing to the left of it? and i know this thread is a little old. you guys dont have to tell me that....lol

anyone?

I just painted the fuse box and engine cover. How do you take off the battery cover and the thing to the left of it? and i know this thread is a little old. you guys dont have to tell me that....lol

battery cover just pulls off. And the "thing to the left" is the ecu.. it has 10mm bolts in the front and back and pulls off.

There's a small air hose at the back of the battery box. Move it out of the way. Then reach down the backside of the box and you will feel 2 plastic latches. Pull the latches open. When they release you can pull up the back of the cover, and then pull the battery cover off.

I think it would look really good if you can get the color to match good. Also leave the chrome and writing on there. (Now to find a red that matches is gonna be hard)


I know this is an older thread but for those still reading it, and those who are interested, www.towerpaint.com will send you colormatched paint, you give them your paint code, they'll mix and mail. They'll even put it in a spray can if you so desire... perfect for this type of DIY

Hi All!

For those still wanting a custom painted engine cover, check this out.

Mazdaparts.org sells the 40th Anniversary Edition engine cover. Below is the link.

http://www.mazdaparts.org/mazda-rx8-engine-cover.html

Pic:

That looks sooo clean.

Beautiful!

Not sure if anyone looks at this thread anymore but if you have any questions you can PM me. I have done this to my 8 and a couple friends of mine too. I have actually gotten quite good. I have a pic in my signature. Let me know what you think.

I have to get a picture of what I did the other day. Not sure if I'll do more but it works for now. I only painted the raised U shaped part of the engine cover. (Like ScudRunner did)

I would like to do that bar that goes across (name escapes me) but I dont know how taking that off and doing it.

Could you post a link of how do we we get the covers out?:banghead:

Thinking about doing this myself, however, not sure what would go good with a crystal white pearl.

Thinking about doing this myself, however, not sure what would go good with a crystal white pearl.

i bet white would look really good if you can get it to look polished, bright and smooth.